A Change in Circumstances
by Esm3rald
Summary: When Holly Potter is 5, she finds out that she's in fact not a Potter at all, but Regulus Black's biological daughter, thanks to a letter her mother left for her. She starts to learn magic on her own and, after having being able to prove Sirius' innocence, she goes to Hogwarts not as the girl-who-lived but as Electra Black where she's sorted into Ravenclaw. AU, HP/SS later on.
1. Prologue

**This story will probably cover all seven years of Hogwarts and will follow the big events from Canon but in general will be AU. First of all, this is a FemHarry story. In this story Holly Potter(FemHarry) will attend Hogwarts in disguise as Regulus Black's daughter. Nobody - except for Sirius and maybe Remus - will know that she's in fact the girl-who-lived. How does she fool everyone? Because in this story Holly is in fact, Regulus' biological daughter but nobody knows. Everybody at Hogwarts will know her as 'Electra Black' and she will be in Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor. Sirius will be freed from Azkaban before her first year at Hogwarts and he will become her guardian since he's in fact her uncle. Well, I hope you like it.**

**BTW, this story is kind of a translation of my Italian story called 'Un Diverso Destino' - the main character was Harry though, not FemHarry - but as things go on it will diverge more and more from the original version. This Italian story is WIP and actually horribly written. I started it years ago, when I had just begun to try my hand at writing. I decided that since the plot was pretty good, why not try to re-write it - hopefully I'll do a better job than I did - but in English this time? **

**Well, I'm done now, don't worry. Please Read and Review!**

**A CHANGE IN CIRCUMSTANCES**

**Summary****: **Holly Potter, the girl-who-lived, was left on the Dursleys' doorstep that particular Halloween night. But it's only when she's five years old that things really start to diverge from the story we all know. When the cupboard under the stairs becomes too small for her, Holly is moved to the basement and that's where she found her mother's - Lily Potter - old trunk. Inside - besides her old school books and a bunch of other amazing things - there's a letter when Lily explains that Holly Potter is not in fact a Potter at all, but she's instead, Regulus Black's daughter and the name on her birth certificate is 'Electra Black'. Ravenclaw!FemHarry(but with a hidden Slytherin personality), Manipulative!FemHarry, Dark-but-not-Evil!FemHarry, Metamorphomagus!FemHarry.

**Main Pairing****: **FemHarry(Holly/Electra)/Severus(eventually). Mentor!Snape for now since when Holly meets Severus for the first time, she's only eleven.

**Other Pairings**: Draco/Hermione, Ron/Daphne, Neville/Luna.

**Warnings**: Mention of child abuse and attempted rape(not too graphic though).

**A little bit of Dumbledore bashing even if it's Canon that he's a manipulative bastard!**

**Disclaimer**: I'll say this only once.I don't own the Harry Potter series nor do I make money by writing this.

****09/28/2014. IMPORTANT: So sorry to the people who wanted Holly with Tom or with both of them, but I thought about it and I decided to make this story a Severus/Holly one, because I just like better the direction the story would take with the two of them together. I had a plan with Tom Riddle in the story but the plot I have in my mind works better with no Tom Riddle but only with Voldemort as the main antagonist. Sorry, I hope you'll like my story anyway and that you will continue follow it.****

**Prologue**

Little Whinging, in Surrey, was an extremely ordinary and normal area. Its houses were all the same, all kept clean and tidy, its lawns green and well-mowed. Privet Drive, like every street that was part of the area, wasn't much different.

A house in that street, however, was different from all the others, even if you couldn't notice it just by looking at it.

Number 4, Privet Drive housed a secret, something that the Dursley family wanted to keep hidden at all cost.

The Dursleys had lived in Privet Drive for many years and during all that time, their main goal had been to appear completely and utterly normal.

Something had happened, however, to disrupt their perfectly normal lives. The night of the 31 of October, a baby girl had been left on their doorstep, a baby that - they knew - would have ruined their extremely ordinary existence forever.

That baby - Holly Potter was her name - was the only daughter of Petunia's sister, a sister that she hadn't seen or heard from in years nor she had any intention to see ever again.

The little bundle was no more than one year old, a tuft of black hair on her head and bright, emerald green eyes. But more than anything, the peculiar characteristic of this baby was the strange-shaped scar on her forehead, a scar that resembled a lightning bolt.

Holly was a quiet baby, a little, dark-haired angel who never cried nor did she ever complain. For the Dursleys, however, she represented the worst disgrace imaginable.

Petunia and her husband Vernon had also a son, the same age as Holly. His name was Dudley. He was a big, blond mass of fat, almost double the size of Holly. He was also an extremely spoiled baby, spending all his time screaming and crying to catch his parents' attention.

In the Dursleys' eyes, however, Dudley was the most wonderful and precious thing in the world and they knew that a baby as beautiful and special as Holly - even if they would never admit such a thing aloud - could represent a danger for their only son. They didn't certainly want a freak such as that one to overshadow their beloved Dudley.

Holly was the living example of everything that the Dursleys considered abnormal. From her appearance: eyes too lively and clever for such a little baby, to the fact that she never cried. Not to mention her parents...who were what they were.

The Dursleys never talked about it but they knew that Holly, exactly like her parents, had magic. But 'magic' was a word that was absolutely forbidden in that house.

Holly was, to make it simple, the exact opposite of Dudley and that in and of it itself was proof enough that she was abnormal.

In the end, the Dursleys decided that the little freak wouldn't even deserve a room of her own and they were both in agreement to the fact that the cupboard under the stairs would be more than enough for her.

The freak certainly didn't deserve new clothes and the only thing she would be allowed to wear were Dudley's hand-me-downs. And they certainly couldn't waste good food on her, the leftovers would have been more than enough for her.

As the years went by, the Dursleys decided that they had been too generous with her and if the girl wanted to stay, she needed to earn her keep. She was then forced to clean and tidy up the house and even cook once she was tall enough to reach the stove, height that she was able to reach when she was only three.

No matter the little food she had to eat and the enclosed and dark space she was forced to live in, little Holly grew up fast. She was pretty tall for her age and this fact only served to make the Dursleys even more angry.

When then, at the age of four, she started to manifest her first magical abilities - precocious age for sure but of that the Dursleys had no idea - was in that moment that things for Holly went from bad to worse.

Vernon decided that the only way to free the girl from her freakishness - namely, her magic - was through beatings. Of course he wasn't able to obtain any result, on the contrary, every cut and bruise Vernon caused her had already healed by the next morning.

It's superfluous to say that this fact helped in infuriating Vernon even more until the beatings became so terrible that she began to faint every single time. The worse the beatings though, the faster her wounds healed, without leaving any scar on her skin.

However things for Holly were about to change.


	2. Chapter 1

**Here's chapter 1. I hope you like it. Tell me what you think and thanks to everyone who reviewed and put my story in the alerts and/or favorites.**

******Thanks so much to my (new) wonderful beta: 'IBrokeBad' for correcting this chapter.******

**Chapter 1**

Holly was sitting in her uncomfortable bed - it was more of a cot actually, with a very thin mattress and an even thinner, moth-eaten blanket - in the basement that had become, since last year, her new room. Her uncle and aunt had realized that she was simply too big for that tiny cupboard and had sent her to sleep in the cold and dark basement.

She had quickly gotten used to the change, however, and even if she sometimes got scared of the dark place, at the same time, she had started to consider the basement her safe place. She knew that neither her aunt nor uncle nor her cousin ever went down there. It was a place for her alone.

The room was very dark and damp, lightened by one single bulb hanging from the ceiling, its light only reaching the center of the room and leaving the corners of it completely immersed in the shadows.

The basement was used by the Dursleys to stack useless things they didn't know what to do with and that they couldn't get rid of. And Holly was probably considered one of those things as well. Holly had tried to make the best of what she had been given and had decided to try to find a use for those things as much as it was possible. She had been able to recover an old, still functioning radio, a TV, an old computer and even a table lamp. She hadn't had the courage to turn on the radio or the TV, since she was afraid of being caught by the Dursleys, but she used the lamp to check the dark places of the room or to read at night, having immediately positioned it near her bed. The computer, on the other hand, she used to do research of everything she didn't understand from the books she read.

Holly was certainly a smart and very special girl. A girl that might have appeared to everyone else as a little prodigy but that was instead shunned at number 4, Privet Drive. She was seen as an abomination, an unacceptable oddness. She was in fact already capable of reading and writing fairly smoothly and she talked in a way that - if anyone didn't know any better - they wouldn't ever have realized that she was in fact only five.

Holly loved to read and learn new things. She even had the capability of remembering everything she read. And, fortunately for her, that basement was full of books for her to read. The Dursleys weren't really great readers, so they had simply left piles of books there because they just didn't know what to do with them.

Her favorite books were fairytales though, because they told about extraordinary and faraway places where magic did exist and where things happened that weren't possible in real life. Holly often found herself imagining how it would be, finding herself in these places where the strange things she could make happen were admired instead of despised.

For about a year now, things kept happening around her that she couldn't explain that made her uncle and aunt even angrier with her. She could make objects float with just the force of her mind, and when she became angry or scared, the windows, tables and even the walls started shaking like in the middle of an earthquake.

Her uncle Vernon hit her even more than usual when one of those things happened and every time some kind of bad thing happened to the Dursleys, Holly was immediately blamed for it. Like that time when Vernon had lost that important client of his drill company - the Grunnings - and the blame was immediately placed on Holly's small shoulders.

Her life in that house couldn't certainly be considered a happy one but little Holly thought that she was lucky to even have a roof over her head and some leftover food to eat. After all, she believed she deserved nothing better, she was just a useless freak of nature that should have been killed as well in the car crash that had made her an orphan.

This was what the Dursleys - her so called family - kept repeating to her every day and little Holly had ended up believing them in the end.

No matter what though, she still couldn't stop hoping that one day something would happen that would allow her to finally leave that house where she was so unwanted.

While her uncle was the one who really hurt her, her aunt Petunia "merely" gave her orders to cook and clean the house, mowing the lawn, things that a child of five shouldn't be allowed to do. Dudley, on the other hand, though still young, had developed a remarkable tendency towards behaving as a bully and Holly - as it could be expected - was his favorite target.

It was finally half past ten in the evening and all the lights in the house had been turned off, plunging the house into complete darkness.

Holly got up slowly and quietly from her bed, approaching the furthest area of the basement from where she slept. That morning, when she had woken up, she had noticed something that had caught her attention. She didn't know why she had never noticed it before but that day the morning light, coming from the only window present in the room, had hit a big and rather old wooden trunk, a type of trunk she had never seen before in her short life.

On one side of it, there was a black inscription that read: L.E.

The child extended a trembling hand towards the padlock that kept the trunk locked, tightened her hand around it, and closed her eyes, wishing for the padlock to open.

It wasn't the first time that she had been able to do something like this. She had practiced hard to open her cupboard's door when her relatives had locked her up in it. Very often at night, in fact, she had been able to sneak out to the kitchen and steal something to eat from the fridge.

When Holly saw what was inside the trunk, she couldn't help but express her surprise.

The inside of the trunk was much wider than what it was supposed to be like. It looked bottomless, very large and thick. Inside of it, there were at least a hundred books, neatly arranged and with strange titles on their covers. There was also a strange round and deep pot that seemed to be made in pewter.

Underneath its lid were placed several glass phials, kept together with a leather string and filled with different colored liquids. Every phial had a label with strange words on it, like 'Felix Felicis', 'Veritaserum' etc.

Suspended on the lid of the trunk there was also a strange wooden stick. It was black, smooth and shiny with red highlights and with its handle decorated with a wrapped snake, embossed on it. Holly had no idea what it was supposed to be used for and why it was there in the first place.

The thing that, strangely enough, was able to capture her gaze more than anything else kept inside that trunk, was a letter with her name on it. Near it, there were two small books in black leather, probably diaries. They were hanging from the lid of the truck like the sticks and the phials, but on the furthest side, away from the rest. Maybe they were positioned that way just to draw attention towards the letter.

It was exactly for this reason that Holly had decided to read the letter first. She removed it from its place and taking it in hand she opened it slowly and carefully, her fingers slightly trembling.

The letter was made of parchment, thin but durable, and filled with black ink in a small but elegant penmanship.

Holly came closer to the light to be able to read better.

_Dear Holly, my dear daughter,_

_If you're reading these words, it means that I'm not longer in this world. I'm writing to you, hoping that these words will help you understand, that they will guide you in your choice, even if I'm not here with you to advise you in person. I made my sister Petunia swear that she would give you this trunk once the right moment would come and, if you are now reading this, it means that she has kept her promise._

_These words are visible only to you, no one else will be able to read them unless you want them to._

_The first thing you need to know is that you, my beautiful daughter, like me and your father, have magic. You are a witch. The magical power runs into your veins. You, Holly, are special. The people you are living with now, my sister and her family, are different from us, they don't have magic. They are what we usually call 'muggles'._

_But let's start from the beginning. You are known to the world as Holly Lily Potter, daughter of Lily Evans - that would be me - and James Potter._

_However this is not the complete truth. First of all, your father is not James Potter but his best friend's brother, Regulus Black. I loved James so much, much more that I'll ever be able to describe, but since you are born from that unique night with Regulus, I could never regret that it happened, I'm actually grateful to him for it._

_You would be wondering, I'm sure, why would I ever decide to betray the only man I've ever loved, even if __it was just for that one time. Well, it's actually rather simple. I was afraid. Completely and utterly afraid. When James asked me to marry him, I panicked. An entire life together with someone. Was that what I was destined to? I felt trapped and I found comfort into that one person that I knew I could trust more than anyone besides James himself, Regulus Black._

_But I'll explain about your biological father later on._

_For now, what you need to know is that I realized immediately my mistake and I decided to never reveal to James what I had done. Fortunately James never realized what had happened and everyone thought that the baby - meaning you - had been born just a little earlier than what was expected. I - on my part - made sure that your resemblance to James was unmistakable to anyone who met you. With my spell, you appear almost like a feminine copy of James but with my green eyes. However this is not your real appearance. If you would ever like to find out how you really look, the spell can be easily removed, if, of course, you know the right counter-spell._

_You need to understand one thing, first of all. Those were dark times for everyone. There was a Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, that was terrorizing the entire Wizarding World (yes, our world, consisting of wizards and witches, is called Wizarding World)._

_His main goal was that of getting rid of every single muggle on the planet and with them everyone who had muggle blood in their veins or dared opposed him. Half-bloods (wizards or witches with a magical parent and a muggle parent), muggleborns (called 'mudbloods' in a derogatory manner) and everyone who sympathized with muggles. Everyone that, according to him, could be considered a threat to the Wizarding World._

_I am myself what you would consider a muggleborn._

_However, even if Voldemort's methods leave a lot to be desired, his ideas are not wholly wrong. You need to understand, Holly, that our magic is inside our blood and that, if every single wizard or witch kept marrying muggles, their magical blood would be diluted, consequentially leaving our magic weaker._

_And we cannot forget the fact that, if our world and that of muggles, kept mingling, we run the risk of being exposed to the world. And trust me when I say that this would mean the end of our magical world. Muggles fear what they don't know__, and the sudden discovery of a world made with people able to do the things that we are able to do would scare them enough to want our destruction. And it doesn't matter how powerful we are, the muggles are simply more numerous than us and they have technologies at their disposal that could remove us from the world in an instant._

_Concerning the muggleborns, on the other hand, well, they are not actually born out of muggles. Wizards and witches came from wizards and witches, Holly, not from muggles. What we commonly call 'muggleborn', is instead someone born out of at least one parent that is a squib (someone born out of magical parents but with no magic of their own)._

_You need to understand that, when - in the pureblood families - squibs are born, they are abandoned into the muggle world and, in the best of cases, they don't even know what their family actually was._

_But, returning to talk about Voldemort, during the years he has surrounded himself with a group of faithful followers - the most of them coming from the most powerful pureblood families in the Wizarding World - that were in agreement with his views and that had started to call themselves 'Deatheaters'._

_Voldemort is extremely powerful and cruel and he's so feared in our world that people are even scared to say his name. They usually refer to him as 'You-Know-Who' or 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. But you shall never be scared to say his name, all right?_

_You are only a few months while I'm writing this and I've been locked up in this house with my husband since you were born as a protection against him._

_Lord Voldemort is hunting us down and sooner or later__he will find us._

_You need to understand exactly why he's hunting us down though._

_A prophecy was told, not long ago, a prophecy that concerns you personally. And that is its exact content._

_"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... and the Dark Lord will mark them as their equal, but they will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies ..."_

_As you can understand, Holly, the Dark Lord the prophecy talks about is Voldemort and you are the person destined to kill him._

_The content of this prophecy has been revealed to us by Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry, considered the best wizard of this century and the only one Voldemort has ever feared._

_A warning, my dear daughter: never trust Albus Dumbledore. _

_He's manipulative and he would use everyone around him in his personal fight against the Dark Lord. He will use you if you'd only give him the chance to, just to destroy Lord Voldemort and then he will throw you away when he has no longer a use for you._

_As you have been able to read for yourself, you are Voldemort's equal in terms of magical power. I can explain to you why that is. It's something not even Dumbledore is aware of because I never told him about it, but you have the right to know._

_My father's name - Richard Evans - is not actually his name at all. In reality, he was a squib, belonging to a French, noble, pureblooded family called 'Saint-Claire', now extinct, descending directly from Salazar Slytherin himself._

_When I reached seventeen years of age - the age of majority in the Wizarding World - I secretly changed my name into 'Fleur de Lis Saint-Claire' even if for everyone I was still Lily Evans._

_Slytherin is one of the four founders of Hogwarts together with Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff, as well as being ancestor of Voldemort himself. So, you see, this is the reason why, in the prophecy, you are considered equals, you are both Slytherin heirs._

_The ability Slytherin was so known for was that of speaking 'parseltounge', the snake language (whoever can speak this language is called 'parselmouth'). You, like Voldemort, will probably have inherited this ability._

_There are still so many things that I have to tell you, but the most important thing of all __is the fact that our house is protected by a very powerful spell called 'Fidelius Charm'. Whichever house is under this spell is hidden from the eye of everyone who has not been told the location of it by the 'Secret Keeper', the person entrusted with its secret location. The 'Secret Keeper' we have chosen is not Sirius Black, your real father's brother and James' best friend - and also your godfather - but he's Peter Pettigrew, a person I've never been able to trust._

_Peter Pettigrew is an unregistered animagus. An animagus is a wizard or witch, able to turn themselves into one single animal. Pettigrew's form is that of a rat. For this very reason he was nicknamed 'Wormtail'. Sirius and James too are unregistered animagi. James can turn himself into a stag and he was nicknamed 'Prongs', while Sirius can turn himself into a huge, black dog and he was nicknamed 'Padfoot'._

_The three of them had decided to become animagi during their fifth year at Hogwarts, to be able to stay with another friend of theirs during the full moons, because this friend - Remus Lupin - is a werewolf. Every full moon, Remus was forced to leave the school walls and spend the three nights every month inside the 'Shrieking Shack', a house considered hunted but that had been built just for him. Walking through the Hogwarts park and reaching a tree called the 'Whomping Willow' - a tree spelled to hit everyone who dared coming near it -, you needed to pass through a secret passage to reach the Shack._

_James, Sirius and Peter, becoming animagi, they could joined their friend in their animal forms and keeping him company while he was in his werewolf form._

_The four of them together were called 'Marauders' and they had ended up drawing a map of the school called 'Marauders' Map', signing it with their nicknames (Remus' nickname is 'Moony')._

_This map is able to show every single person present in the school, and every secret passage and hidden place they knew about, including the common rooms of the four school houses created in honour of the four founders._

_Despite my Slytherin lineage, at Hogwarts__I've been sorted into Gryffindor like the Marauders. However, my best friend, my very first friend - Severus Snape - had been sorted into Slytherin._

_I've known Severus since before coming to Hogwarts. It had been him that had revealed to me that I was a witch. Severus is a half-blood. His mother was a pureblood witch, of the Prince family line, while his father was a mere muggle._

_Tobias Snape was not a good father__at all. He drank a lot, he gambled all his money away and used poor Eileen Prince as a punching bag because he didn't like the fact that she was a witch._

_Severus was forced to go around, wearing second-hand clothes and he, like his mother, was often beaten up by his father for no other reason that because he had magic. No, Severus' childhood had been everything but happy._

_Once at Hogwarts, the rivalry between our two houses tore us apart little by little. Even if it was thanks to Severus that I met your father, Regulus. The two of them were in the same house, even if Regulus was two years below us in Hogwarts. The three of us stayed friends until my fifth year at Hogwarts when I - I regret to say this - gave up on him because he had called me 'mudblood' in a moment of embarrassment and anger._

_The Marauders were the school's pranksters but sometimes they could become really mean in their jokes. And Severus was, unfortunately, their favorite target. That one time, at the end of our fifth year at Hogwarts, James and Sirius went too far and Severus just snapped when I tried to defend him, calling me that derogatory term. I now realize that I shouldn't have intervened in that blatant way because Severus is extremely proud and had probably felt even more weak and pathetic that he was already feeling in that moment, because of my intervention. I ended our friendship that very day and with that my friendship with your father started to deteriorate too._

_That, I'm afraid, was probably one of the reasons why he joined the death eaters' ranks as soon as he had graduated from Hogwarts. And Regulus followed soon after._

_Severus had probably let himself get convinced by his housemates about the superiority of wizards against muggles, and after a childhood like his, who could blame him?_

_You have to understand that in Slytherin house, they end up mostly components of the purest and most nobles houses whose ideas against muggles are ingrained into them since their birth. Voldemort has simply used this as a way to gain followers._

_Sirius and Regulus' family was one of those families. 'The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black'. But while Sirius had always rebelled against his family, going as far as leaving his house when he was fifteen and being disowned for it. Regulus, on the other hand, had always been the devoted son, the one who had always followed his parents' wishes. And her parents were so proud when he decided to join the Deatheaters._

_But Regulus had no idea what being a deatheater actually meant, and as soon as he found out he wanted out. And since that realization hit him, he tried to find a way to destroy Voldemort. And he did, in the end. I don't know what it is, Regulus had never wanted to tell me but I think that he died for this._

_The last time I saw him, he was so excited. He told me that Voldemort had entrusted him with an important task that would get him closer to finally found out his secrets. What was that Voldemort was so sure about, that he thought made him immortal? Regulus believed that he could find out with a little bit of time._

_That was also the moment that I revealed to him that I was expecting and that the child was his. I remembered that he looked sad and happy at the same time. Happy because of course, he was about to have a child, and sad because he would never have been able to actually be a father for his child, not with me married to James and not with his life as a Deatheater._

_Unfortunately he disappeared a few days later. Everyone thought that Voldemort had found out about his betrayal and that he had killed him for it. But Voldemort had never actually claimed responsibility for it, __the thing that he would have done if he had actually killed him himself. I'm sure that he died during that mission Voldemort had entrusted him with. He died trying to find a way to kill Voldemort and for that, at least, you have to be proud of him._

_But let's go back to talking about Severus now. As I was saying, Severus became a Deatheater. One of the acts that I know he felt most guilty of__is having heard part of the prophecy and having told it to Voldemort. Reason why Voldemort is now after us._

_After Severus realized exactly what he had done, he ran__to Dumbledore, repentant, begging him to find a way to save us and offering to spy for the Light faction. I'm sure that Dumbledore has taken advantage of Severus's guilt to use him as a weapon to destroy Voldemort._

_I beg you, Holly, when the time is right, save Severus, do what I wasn't strong enough to do, don't allow Dumbledore to use him further. Free Severus from his two masters!_

_Tell Severus that I'm not angry with him, that I haven't been for a long time. That the end of our friendship was not only his fault but mine too. I should have stayed by his side. Tell him that I loved him, no matter what._

_Just a last thing, my dear girl. If things went as I think, your name would be known all over the Wizarding world. If I can give you my personal advice, tell only the people you really trust who you really are and use the 'Regulus' daughter' persona with everyone else._

_Because you see, Holly Lily Potter is not your real name. As Regulus' daughter, I thought it necessary to create a second birth certificate that attested the fact that you are in fact a Black. It's secret, of course, and known only to the goblins of Gringotts (the Wizarding Bank) like my real name._

_However, I made a copy of it that you will find inside this trunk, with your real name on it and those of your parents: Fleur de Lis Saint-Claire and Regulus Arcturus Black._

_I changed your birth date to the 2nd of August, so that - in case anyone finds out about it or you want to use it to show yourself to the world as a Black - no one will be able to connect Electra Black - that's the name I gave you, the name Regulus wanted you to have - to Holly__Potter, daughter of Lily and James Potter._

_With all the love I'm capable of,_

_Your mother_

_P.S. The two small books inside the trunks are a two-way diaries. This means that you can communicate with the person you decide to give one of the two diaries to, just by writing in the other you keep for yourself. The message you write in one diary will automatically appear in the other. And everything that you and this other person will write, will be visible only to you and this other person. Use it when you want to communicate secretly with someone._

_About the wooden stick you can see on the lid of the trunk, it's a wand. I found it inside the vault belonging to the Saint-Claire's family. I really hope is compatible with your magic. As you will soon find out, it is the wand that chooses the wizard (or witch in this case)._

_I also left you various books and one of these is about the history of the Wizarding World and it's self-updating. This means that you will be able to read for yourself what happened since the moment I wrote this letter to you and why you have been left at the Dursleys._

_Please Holly, use these books and the potions (the glass phials) inside this trunk to widen your knowledge and learn how to use your magical capabilities to their fullest potential. Never be afraid of your magic! If things will go as I predict, in a few years you will become one of the most powerful magical beings the Wizarding World has ever seen. You will need to work hard and push yourself beyond your limits, learn how to control your magic not only with your wand, but you will also have to be able to cast spells wandlessly. Only this way, you will become really great._


	3. Chapter 2

**Here's chapter 2. I hope you like it.**

**BTW, You will wonder after this chapter if Holly is a sociopath. No, she's not. But that doesn't mean that she will react like normal people - who haven't been abused - would to some situations. She will be ruthless and merciless with her enemies and the people who try to hurt her and the people she cares about. But she's perfectly capable of emotions.**

**WARNING****: ATTEMPTED RAPE in this chapter! Nothing too graphic though!**

**Thanks so much to my (new) wonderful beta: 'IBrokeBad' for correcting this chapter.**

**Chapter 2**

Two years had gone by since the night Holly had found out about the trunk and read her mother's letter. It had been a shock at first, all those revelations all together, things that she hadn't fully understood at first. Everything starting from that night had appeared different to her. Even if her life at the Dursleys' House hadn't changed at all, she had a purpose now, a reason to go on.

Since that night, every moment that she had free from her chores was dedicated to the study of magic, exactly like her mother had advised her to do. The books inside the trunk were extraordinary, from the history books to those dedicated to magical theory, to those about charms and potions. Some of those books were Lily's old school books, from the first to the seventh year, but a lot of those were not part of the school curriculum.

Among them was also 'Hogwarts: a History' with all the information you could wish for about the castle. Then, there were those that explained where the magic came from and, consequently, the necessary distinction between wizards and muggles. Others were the historical accounts of the entire Wizarding world, including the First War against Voldemort and his subsequent downfall. Like her mother had predicted, her name was known all over the Wizarding World because - nobody knew how - she was the first to have ever survived the Avada Kedavra - the killing curse. Because of this, she had gained the title of 'Girl-Who-Lived' while her parents had died and, in that same night, the Dark Lord had disappeared, leaving in everyone the conviction that he was gone for good.

Besides the books about all the subjects taught in Hogwarts, there were others about subjects like Legilimency, Occlumency, Parselmagic, Healing magic, Elemental Magic and, at least, twenty tomes about the Dark Arts. The tomes inside the trunk were arranged according to the subject and the level of difficulty, the easiest on the top then going, gradually, harder and harder the lowest the tome was positioned inside the trunk. Lily Evans had really thought of everything.

Holly had read all her mother's school books at least once, plus 'Hogwarts: a History', a book about Wizarding traditions and the book about the history of the Wizarding World and, a few months ago, she had started to read about Legilimency and Occlumency. Those last two subjects - according to the author - were extremely complex, but not for Holly, for her these subjects were extremely easy to grasp. She was a natural at it. From what she had read, there were people who were born with those natural abilities, with the mental strength to protect your mind from external invasion, to understand if someone was lying to you and even to enter someone else's mind if you concentrate hard enough. She was a naturally born legilimens and occlumens, like Voldemort had been before her.

She had also found out that she was a methamorphomagus, someone with the ability to change her body features. For now she was only able to change her hair color and that of her eyes but soon she would be able to start changing her facial features.

She especially loved to change her eye color to silver. She loved her emerald green eyes of course, because they were her mother's eyes. But the silver eyes were a typical characteristic of the Black family and that meant that she could feel closer to her biological father somehow.

She had in fact found a photo album inside the trunk where there were a lot of photos about her mother, her father, Severus Snape, her uncle Sirius, her adoptive father James Potter, Remus Lupin and that traitor Peter Pettigrew. They were photos of their time at Hogwarts, from age eleven to seventeen-eighteen. Right now she looked a lot like James Potter but with her mother's eyes but she knew that that was only temporary.

She had also started to practice some spells with the black wand of the SaintClaire's family and she had been able to cast them without too much difficulty. The wand worked perfectly for her and yet, she felt like something was missing, almost as if that wasn't the wand destined for her. Unfortunately - because of the restrictions imposed by the Ministry - she wasn't yet allowed to have her own wand until her eleventh birthday. Actually, she wasn't sure that at the age she was now, she was allowed to use a wand at all. Probably not.

Holly had reached seven years of age a few days ago and her appearance had started to change. Among her mother's books, she had found a book on Glamour Charms and - inside of it - the spell Lily had used on her and the counter-spell. The counter-spell hadn't been particularly difficult to cast but the changing process was a slow one and it would take a few months still before the spell wore off completely.

She had become even taller, reaching 1.35 meters, her usually ruffled hair were now smooth and shiny, cascading perfectly straight over her shoulders and back. They were also darker now, midnight black with blue undertones. They reached her mid back and she had grown some side bangs to cover her scar. Her skin had become paler, almost white, her facial features sharper. Even if her sight had always been bad, the Dursleys had never allowed her to wear glasses. Now though, her sight was improving, even though it was slowly.

She was still skinny but because of all the chores the Dursleys gave her, she was also rather fit, enough that she didn't appear malnourished - though in fact she was.

She definitely was a beautiful girl, a fact that none of the Dursleys had missed.

Dudley hated this particular fact because all of his friends refused to torment 'someone as pretty as her' - even with the rags she was forced to wear - like Dudley wanted them to. He was forced to leave her alone most of the time because he was too much of a coward to do things on his own.

Petunia was jealous plain and simple, because Holly's mother had been beautiful too while Petunia was not even pretty.

Vernon on the other hand...

Holly couldn't understand. Her uncle had started to stare at her in a strange way, a way that she didn't like at all and that made her nervous.

Since Holly was not at all stupid, she had tried in every possible way to never stay in a room alone with him.

Lately though, Vernon had not only kept staring at her, but he had also started to caress her hair and back, in a way that made her shiver in disgust and fear.

Holly was not sure what exactly was going on but she knew that an uncle shouldn't touch his niece in that way. It was wrong, it was...

The more the time passed and the more Holly was afraid.

That night, Holly was cooking dinner. Her aunt and cousin had went to the grocery store while her uncle hadn't yet come back from work. She was all alone in the house.

Holly was focused on cooking until she heard the house door being opened and then slamming shut.

"Holly? Where are you, you little freak?" She heard his uncle say in a slurry voice.

Holly realized immediately that the man was drunk. If there was a time when Vernon was worse than how he usually was, it was exactly when he drank.

Holly started to shake in fear, a reaction she couldn't help no matter how much she wanted to. Even if she was terrified, she answered anyway because she knew that if she had done otherwise, the punishment would be even worse.

She could hear the heavy feet of her uncle heading towards the kitchen but she didn't dare turn around, the saucepan she was holding with one hand trembling uncontrollably.

"Holly" Vernon said, with a tone of voice Holly had never heard before. It seemed almost...affectionate.

Holly didn't move from her position, not even when her uncle came closer to her and started to caress her hair. She was frozen in place, terrified and not having any idea what to do.

"You're a beautiful girl, do you know that?" He asked rhetorically to her. Holly didn't say a word. "It's a shame you are also a worthless and useless freak." He continued, his tone harsher before going back to the same strange, smooth tone as before "But you could be useful for something. You could. . . please me and I could be kinder to you in return. You may even like it, who knows?" He whispered the last few sentences to her ear.

Holly didn't exactly understand what was going on but every instinct in her body was telling her to run away from her uncle as fast as she could. She felt almost faint, wondering what she had done that was awful enough to find herself in these kinds of situations.

In the meantime, Vernon, tired of his niece's silence, grabbed Holly's arm with force, turning her around abruptly. Holly felt her back hitting the fridge and suppressed a wince.

She was suddenly trapped between the fridge and her uncle's enormous body, with no chance of escape.

Vernon grabbed her wrists, bringing her hands over her head with one hand while, with the other, he started to take off her too-large t-shirt.

Holly was still frozen, stuck in her head and still trying to realize that this was really happening to her. She started to beg him to stop, her tears starting to cover her face. Her uncle didn't seem to hear her in the slightest, or maybe he simply didn't care about her protests. He started to caress her naked chest and Holly wondered what was there to caress since she hadn't even started puberty yet. And then wondered immediately after what was wrong with her that she would be wondering what was attractive about non-developed breasts. Her brain couldn't seem to shut up, analyzing every single thing that was happening around her but unable to find a solution to the situation she had found herself in.

She felt Vernon's beefy hand sliding to her jeans' button, opening it in a swift movement. The following sound of the lowering zip seemed extremely loud in the silent kitchen. She could feel his lips close to her ear but she couldn't understand the words coming out of his mouth. She wondered if she had fallen into a state of shock because she didn't seem able to move a muscle.

Holly had stopped pleading for her uncle to stop and she stood immobile, silent while waiting for the inevitable to happen. Her tears were the only sign of her distress, sliding silently down her cheeks. None of the spells she had studied were able to help her in that moment. She was completely helpless.

**Please make it stop!** She begged in her mind, having no idea who exactly she was praying for. **Please, I'll do anything. Make it stop!**

But her uncle didn't stop. He started to caress her most intimate place above her knickers.

**NO! Don't touch me! Stop! Stop!** She screamed in her mind, unable to utter a word. She suddenly felt a prickle beneath her skin, exactly like it had happened every time she had tried a spell with the SaintClaire's wand. She felt the raw power she possessed invading her senses, begging to come out and attack the man in front of her.

**I wish you'd die! I wish I could kill you to prevent you from touching me ever again! Get away from me you disgusting muggle!**

And suddenly Vernon stopped. An expression of pain on his face, both hands went to touch his chest, allowing Holly to be free. Vernon got away from her, struggling to breath and, in that moment, Holly understood.

It was her magic doing that to him but she couldn't stop. If she could have looked in the mirror in that moment, she would have seen an elated expression crossing her face, almost drunk of the power she could feel flowing through her. In that moment she wanted nothing more than for Vernon to die a very painful death.

She focused on his heart, its irregular rhythm going faster and faster. And suddenly, Vernon dropped to the ground, panting and his hands pushing against his chest and then...he stopped moving. Holly realized what she had just done. She had just killed someone.

She retrieved her t-shirt that had fallen on the floor, put it on, and then she closed the jeans zip and button, her movements slow, almost languid. Her eyes were empty of emotions, exactly like those staring at her from the floor.

She decided immediately what to do. She descended the stairs and reached the basement. She took her trunk and spelled it to be lighter and smaller, not even needing a wand to do it. Then she went to the upper floor until she reached her uncle and aunt's bedroom. She opened the safe behind one of the paintings hanging on the wall - with magic of course - and took all the money kept inside before putting it inside her pockets.

Then she descended the stairs once again and entered the kitchen. She looked at the body still lying on the kitchen floor one more time before leaving the house through the back door.

Holly looked at the deserted street covered in darkness and breathed deeply through her lungs, savoring the crispy air of a summer night and she suddenly felt calmer, her analytical mind already thinking about her next step. She needed to hurry, her aunt would be back at any moment.

She ran until she reached the park, and more still until she arrived at the train station, without stopping, but sometimes looking behind her to make sure she wasn't being followed. Nobody was following her though. The few people still around at that time of night were going about their business without taking notice of her.

The ticket office was still open. A man was sitting behind the counter of about fifty years of age, an expression of boredom painted on his face, his grizzled beard and mustache covering half his face.

He looked Holly from head to toe, his eyebrow raised in skepticism, before asking what she wanted in a not-so-gentle tone.

"Two tickets to King's Cross, London, please." Answered Holly, with the sweetest and most innocent tone she could master.

"How old are you girl? And why are you all alone at this time of night?" The man asked her, his tone brusque.

Holly giggled slightly at the question, like the notion of her being alone was ridiculous. "Oh, I'm not alone, sir. My mother sent me to buy the tickets, she's just outside, watching out for my little brother. And I'm twelve, I'm not a little girl".

"Very well." he grunted in response the man "It's twenty pounds". Holly smiled and gave him the money while checking surreptitiously how much money she was left with. She had still 430 pounds but she needed to be careful and not spend it all together. She still needed to decide what to do once she would arrive in London.

She retrieved the tickets the man had just given her and left quickly, feeling the ticket seller's eyes piercing her back.

She was able to find someone to sell her other ticket to, to get back part of the money she had just spent. The train was perfectly on time, arriving just about ten minutes after she had reached the station. She boarded the train and found an empty compartment where to sit. She looked outside the window while waiting for the train to depart.

Holly wondered if Petunia and Dudley had already found Vernon's body and if they had already called the police, accusing her niece of killing him. Fortunately for her, no policeman would ever believe that a girl of seven had killed her uncle by causing him a heart attack with magic. But she was still a seven year old without guardians, she needed to be careful because she had no intention of going back to that house, not even now that Vernon was dead.

She found herself thinking about what had happened not even an hour ago and wondered if it was normal that she couldn't even feel an ounce of regret for what she had done. She wasn't sorry that he was dead, she wasn't sorry that she had killed him, not after what he had tried to do to her. Maybe that made her a monster but she couldn't bring herself to care. She felt absolutely nothing about the fact that she had killed him.

Actually, she felt relief. She had been able to stop him with her magic and now she was free. Free to do whatever she wanted, to be whatever she wanted. She wasn't sure what she would do from now on but she knew that she was about to start a new chapter of her life. Things were about to change and she hoped that they would change for the better.


	4. Chapter 3

**I'm sorry if my updates can't be more frequent but I promise I've not abandoned any of my stories, so, if you're following not only this one but some of my other stories as well, don't worry, though I'm slow at updating them, I'll keep writing. Have faith. That said, hope you like the new chapter. Please read and review!**

**Chapter 3**

In no time at all, the train reached King's Cross. Holly didn't lose any time in getting off the train and leaving the station.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do, nor she had any place to go at the moment.

She decided to wander around for a bit, buy something to eat and then think about what to do.

Luck didn't seem to be on her side that day though. A policeman was doing his daily inspection when he saw her.

"What are you doing here, all alone? Where are your parents?" He asked her kindly.

Holly lowered her gaze to the ground before answering "They died some years ago, sir". She didn't need to imagine the expression of pity that she was sure was crossing the officer's face in that moment.

He looked at her clothes next, too large for her and obviously old. "Have you been on the street all this time?". He asked her rhetorically.

Holly wasn't particularly surprised that the officer had come to the conclusion that she had been living on the streets since her parents' death. She decided to take advantage of the situation, after all no orphanage could be worse than the house she had lived in until that moment. Living in an orphanage would at least mean having a roof over her head and food to eat every day. In addition to that, there was also the fact that, if anyone tried to hurt her, they would find themselves on their receiving end of her magic. She knew how to defend herself now and she had no qualms about using her magic to retaliate against someone who tried to hurt her. She had no intention of returning to be some muggles' punching bag, she had no intention of reliving what she had been through with the Dursleys thank you very much.

"I have no place to go sir" She decided to say in the end, not actually answering the policeman's question but implying that yes, she had lived on the streets all her life.

"What is your name?" He asked her then, looking at her pityingly. Holly hated to be pitied but she was fortunately able to maintain her air of innocence and sadness.

"Electra Black, sir." She answered, without the need to think about it. She couldn't certainly introduce herself as Holly Potter since she had decided that 'Holly Potter' needed to disappear. The alternate choice was rather easy to make.

"Electra uhm? What a strange name..." He commented to himself then he added "Well, come on then. I'll find you a place to stay!" And reaching out towards her, he took her hand in his, smiling at her all the while, probably going for a reassuring expression that had no effect whatsoever on her.

The policeman, like pretty much every other person Holly had come in contact with, was immediately charmed by her innocent air and her beautiful face. Holly had never thought about using her appearance to her advantage but now she realized that it could be useful, learning to use her looks to manipulate people to obtain what she wanted.

The officer - who had introduced himself as Mark Thompson - like she was expecting brought her to an orphanage. The matron of the orphanage, Mrs O'Connell, didn't lose anytime in welcoming her inside, once the officer had explained the situation to him. The matron wasn't certainly new to those sorts of things and didn't ask her any questions.

Mrs O'Connell told her to choose a room and then went down for dinner that will be served at exactly 8 o'clock in the dining room at the end of the entrance hall.

St. Marie's Orphanage had been built after the First World War but had been renovated not too long ago, a decade at the most. The east side of the orphanage, however, had been left as it was before the renovation and all the rooms were left empty.

Holly, that wanted a place where she could be by herself without being bothered by anyone, chose a room belonging to the east side, considering it - since it was deserted - the best place in the orphanage where she could keep her privacy and continue to study magic.

The room she had chosen was big, though old, painted in dark colors and with a canopy bed in the centre that looked rather comfortable - or at least better than what she had been used to until now -. There was also a cherry wood wardrobe, a desk of the same wood, an empty bookcase and a bedside table near the bed. It was all rather simple but it was certainly better than anything Holly had ever known since that moment.

The child freed the shrunken trunk from her pocket and returned it to its original size, before putting it inside the wardrobe and locking this one with a key that she hid inside the pocket of her jeans.

Looking at her watch, she realized that it was almost time for dinner and immediately she left her new bedroom and went down towards the dining room.

The dining room consisted of a large table around which were seated children of different ages, everyone wearing the same tattered, old uniform.

Holly walked in slowly but as soon as Mrs O'Connell saw her, brought her in front of a table to introduce her to the other kids.

Holly barely smiled in response before sitting down and starting to eat.

The first months at the orphanage passed quickly and Holly felt rather pleased at her new accommodations. She spent most of her time locked up in her room, reading and practicing spells, and left it only when it was time to eat. She hadn't made any friends nor she didn't want any. After what had happened with the Dursleys, she wasn't willing to trust anyone. She preferred being alone for the most part and the only times she had contact with other people was when she needed something from them.

In the beginning, a lot of boys and girls of the orphanage had tried to befriend her, attracted to her beautiful face and her charismatic personality, but she had refused everybody. Not everyone had taken the rejection well but there wasn't anyone brave enough to confront her about it.

During that time, the spell casted on her by her mother had completely faded, leaving her with her real appearance, that of a Black, so that no one would be able to recognize her as Holly Potter. She had also found a practical way to hide her scar, with muggle make up, since no glamour seemed to have any effect on it.

However, the most amazing thing that had happened in those months at the orphanage was the discovery of a new compartment in the trunk where there were all the documents concerning all that she owned, both in terms of money and houses, both of the SaintClaire and the Potter families. Though she couldn't access the Potter vaults for obvious reasons, and though most of what she owned was off-limits until her age of majority, her mother had opened a trust vault for her under the name SaintClaire. In the trunk there were also half a million pounds plus an invisibility cloak, an old, strange parchment completely blank that she had later figured out was the Marauders' Map, potions ingredients that appeared perfectly intact – both common and rare ones – probably under a preservation spell, tons of books – most of them about the dark arts - and wizarding robes that would automatically adapt to the size of the wearer. She had also found out a photo album with photos of Lily, Severus and Regulus and also of James Potter, Sirius, Remus Lupin and Pettigrew.

The first thing she did as soon as she found out about the money was going on a shopping spree in London, intent on buying herself a new wardrobe and everything else she saw that captured her interest. The time for her to wear Dudley's hand-me-downs was over.

She was also making a lot of progress with magic. She had already learned a lot of spells present in her mother's school books and in others, whose branches were not taught in Hogwarts, like healing magic, elemental magic, parselmagic – since it was not common being able to talk to snakes – and even the dark arts. In particular, she had a natural predisposition towards the dark arts, probably due to the blood in her veins – SaintClaire's and Black's, both dark families.

To learn a spell, she needed to cast it with a wand first and then she would try without it. Wandless magic required a great amount of raw magic and not everyone had that kind of power, thing that made it almost impossible for most wizards and witches. She was not a normal witch however. Yes, wandless magic was certainly difficult for her but not impossible. She had noticed though, that the more she practiced, the easier it became. Maybe because she was still so young, her magical core could still be 'trained', so to say.

She had read some articles in the papers regarding her disappearance – or at least 'Holly Potter's disappearance. Of course they had no way of finding her, first because Petunia had been unable to provide even one picture of her, and second because – even if she had – with the looks she sported now, nobody would be able to make the connection between her and the girl who had been living with the Dursleys until six months ago.

Beside the fact that she had grown in height even more, all her physical traits she had supposedly 'inherited' from James Potter had disappeared, living her looking more like a feminine version of Regulus – her real father – or her uncle Sirius. From the Blacks for instance she had inherited her raven black hair and her ivory skin. From her mother she had inherited – beside her green eyes - her small nose, thin eyebrows and full lips. Her eyesight too was completely healed.

It was very probable that they had started looking for her at Dumbledore's behest and not certainly because of her aunt. However, she was willing to bet that they were looking for someone who was the feminine copy of James Potter with short, wild hair and round glasses. They really didn't have any chance of finding her.


End file.
